The Grace Painter (The Grace Series Book 1)

by Mark Romang

  From out of nowhere, heavily armed Columbians streamed into the warehouse. Similar to Sadam Hussein’s Special Republican Guard, these men were Juan Angelica’s specially trained troops and were taxed with only one purpose: protecting the drug lord from his many enemies. And they were everywhere. The Columbian commandos infested the warehouse from every direction.

  Brinkman and his outmanned Rangers fought heroically with all the energy and bravery they could muster. They mowed down the Columbians. But just like a video game, reinforcements streamed into the fray, taking the place of the dead and wounded. Eventually the tide of the battle turned.

  One Ranger suffered a fatal shot to the neck, while another died after a grenade rolled up under his legs. Brinkman barked into his bone mike, “Creech, Stonum, I need you to leave your positions ASAP! We’re taking heavy fire. We can’t hold them off much longer.”

  “I copy, Brink. We’ll double-time it,” Corporal Ezra Creech promised from his position up in the billiard room.

  Brinkman tapped Staff Sergeant Sweeny’s shoulder. The big Ranger stopped firing his M-16 and turned to face his NCO. “Get on the horn and call command,” Brinkman ordered. “Tell them we need fire support in the next ten minutes. And tell them if we don’t get it--good men will die.”

  “Yes, sir,” Sweeny said as he grabbed at the satellite phone strapped to his back.

  Brinkman unleashed heavy cover fire as Sweeny followed orders. He shot an advancing soldier that couldn’t have been much older than sixteen. A bubbling sound gurgled from the youth’s chest as he clutched at his sternum. He stumbled and fell onto a pile of his dead comrades. Obeying a premonition, Brinkman whirled in time to cut down a man behind him aiming two pistols.

  “I got Captain Maxwell on the line, sir,” Sweeny said, handing Brinkman the phone.

  “Captain, Angelica commandos are overrunning the warehouse. They’re well-armed and hostile. Any chance you can divert some men down here to help us out?” Brinkman could guess what his superior’s answer would be. And he didn’t like it.

  “I’m sorry, First Sergeant. But I can’t spare anybody,” a masculine voice rasped from the other end of the phone. “We got all we can handle up here. See if you can extract your team and join us.”

  “What about the spook?”

  “Forget about him. If he’s not dead, he should be. He snitched on us.”

  Brinkman felt his displeasure for O’Donnell increase tenfold. “That would explain how they knew we were coming.”

  “Yes, it certainly would. Has your team taken any casualties?”

  Brinkman coughed as a cocaine brick exploded nearby, showering his face with the powdery drug. He tried not to breathe it in as he brushed it off his face. Now wouldn’t be a good time to come under the influence. “Two men are down. Both are dead,” he reported solemnly, feeling shame and guilt even though death always comes in combat. It’s just that he’d never had it come while under his watch, and felt personally responsible for the lives lost.

  There was a palpable pause before Maxwell spoke again. “Sorry to hear it, Sergeant,” Maxwell said, his glum voice matching Brinkman’s. “Just defend your position the best you can. And if you can’t make it back out, I’ll send support as soon as I’m able, over and out.”

  Brinkman hung the phone up on Sweeny’s backpack, even as the Staff Sgt. fired his M-16 at a pair of Columbian commandos. The rest of Brinkman’s Rangers were doing the same, dealing death in spades to men much too young to die. Cordite hung so heavily in the air that Brinkman could not only smell it, but see it. Brinkman yelled at the top of his lungs for his men to hold their fire. But they didn’t hear him. Three attempts later, he finally got their attention and waved them over.

  “Command nixed our plea for help. Apparently things aren’t going much better above us. So the captain suggested we abort the mission and retreat. You guys want to do that, or keep going?” Brinkman looked at his men. They were dog-tired and sagging against each other. Blood from their wounds mingled together. They looked like hell.

  Sweeny spoke first. “If it’s not an order to abort, let’s keep going. We owe it to Spicer and Murdock not to quit. Otherwise, they gave up their lives for nothing.” One by one, they all nodded their heads.

  Brinkman had never been more proud to be a Ranger. The selfless heroes he commanded wouldn’t hesitate to march into hell and shoot an RPG into Beelzebub’s backside if he asked them to. “Okay. We keep going.” Brinkman looked around. “Has anyone seen Creech or Stonum?”

  “Here they come now,” Sgt. Galindez said, motioning with his head. They all looked in the direction Galindez indicated and saw Ezra Creech and Rick Stonum running low and fast along one wall, firing their rifles when targets presented themselves. A few, dicey seconds later they arrived safely to much backslapping and even more ribbing.

  “Okay, listen up,” Brinkman said, cutting off the celebration. “There are eight of us left. Pair up with a buddy and cover each other’s six. Don’t worry about conserving your ammo. If we have to we’ll use grenades to blast our way out.” Brinkman shoved a fresh clip into his M-16 and his Beretta. “Okay, let’s nab the spook and get out of here,” he said and took off in a half-crouch, holding his finger down on the trigger of his M-16 until his digit ached, spraying 5.56mm/.223 in. rounds at any combatant foolish enough to reveal their position.

  The mezzanine loomed about forty yards ahead. Battling fierce resistance, Brinkman and his Rangers covered the distance in a shade under a minute. But success came at a premium. Two more Rangers died trying to ascend the mezzanine steps. Only six made it to the top step and remained to complete the mission.

  Their heads swiveling for ambushing gunmen, and working in pairs, Brinkman and his men canvassed the mezzanine, going from room to room. Luckily, they didn’t run across any more enemy militia. The elevated floor appeared deserted, but Brinkman knew better than to relax his guard. He knew there was always calm before the storm.

  Only two more rooms remained to be searched on the mezzanine. Sweeny kicked open the next to last door. Brinkman peered inside and spotted the elusive spook. The deep-cover CIA operative sat at a desk, his face buried in a small mound of cocaine.

  “Creech, you and Stonum grab the spook,” Brinkman commanded. “Dead or alive, he’s coming with us.”

  “Roger that, Brink,” Corporal Creech quickly hoisted the diminutive spook onto his shoulders and, protected by two fellow Rangers, began descending the mezzanine steps. Brinkman and Staff Sergeant Sweeny started to follow but stopped in their tracks when Sweeny suddenly yelped and grabbed at his ear.

  In one quick glance, Brinkman appraised the situation. Sweeny’s mangled ear dripped blood, but the wound didn’t appear serious. Looking beyond Sweeny, Brinkman saw a lone gunman pointing a sound-suppressed handgun at them.

  Brinkman leveled his rifle and fired a six-shot burst into the gunman’s stomach, nearly disemboweling him. The man screamed and crumpled to the floor. Brinkman jogged up to the shooter and kicked away his weapon. He gasped when he recognized the man.

  It was Carlos Zaplata--Juan Angelica’s understudy, and a man the DEA had their crosshairs aligned on for many years. Blood oozed from Zaplata’s shredded abdomen and pooled on the floor by his side. He wheezed for breath like he had emphysema. Zaplata looked up at Brinkman with glassy eyes. Agony covered his graying face like a mask. “Finish me,” he gasped.

  “I’m not that accommodating, Carlos. I think I’ll just let nature take its course. You’ll bleed out in a few minutes anyway.”

  Zaplata coughed up blood as he continued to glare at Brinkman. “Then I’ll…see you… in hell,” he spat out just before his eyes fluttered shut.

  Rarely do people survive gunshot wounds so severe to the stomach. But Brinkman would later find out that after multiple surgeries at Columbia’s finest hospitals, Zaplata did just that. Every morning when he opened his eyes, Brinkman lamented not firing a finishing shot into Zaplata’s brain. There would undoubtedly be
far less cocaine and heroin addicts in the United States had he pulled the trigger one more time, and his beloved daughter might never have started using the drug that later killed her. If only…

  ****

  Brinkman felt hands shaking his shoulders. He looked up into Elizabeth Chandler’s flawless face. This time genuine concern furrowed her brow.

  “Are you okay, Mario? You’re scaring us. You look as if you’ve just seen a ghost,” Chandler said.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” he muttered.

  Chandler removed her supple hands from Brinkman’s shoulders, but not after they lingered a bit too long on his neck. “About the operation, Mario…”

  Brinkman interrupted her. “I promise you, Elizabeth. You will not see me at the Morgan City harbor,” he said firmly. But I’ll be there. Oh, yes, I’ll be there. He wouldn’t let Carlos Zaplata wriggle off the hook again. He’d made the mistake once. He wouldn’t again.

  Chapter 30

  Atchafalaya Basin

  Sebastian fought valiantly to regain his misplaced composure. But standing face to face with the worst kind of evil did him no favors. His uncle looked like he wanted to snap him in half. And he had the size to pull it off. Henri stood a head taller and outweighed him by more than a hundred pounds. “You actually know where the money is?” Sebastian finally asked, raising his voice to compensate for the keening wind.

  Henri spat a flux of tobacco juice into the flooded Atchafalaya River. “I visited your old man three years back. Claude told me where he stashed it. But I could never find the logging truck. But thanks to you, nephew, I’m about to become a millionaire.”

  Sebastian took a brief moment to analyze his uncle’s comments. Judging by his body language, it didn’t sound like Henri planned to share the ransom money with anybody. The giant beast intended to keep every last cent.

  “Well, are you going to open the hood or not? Don’t you want to see if it’s really in there?” Henri asked.

  “But there’s something to do with a rusty wheel,” Sebastian said. “I think maybe we should try removing a tire.”

  Henri rolled his gargoyle eyes. “Step aside! I’ll show you the rusty wheel!” Henry traipsed through the fast current as easily as if he were walking in a kiddy pool. Sebastian shuddered when he saw his uncle bend down and pull a Bowie knife from inside his boot.

  Using the big knife like a machete, Henri mutilated the kudzu vines until the tangled vegetation parted enough to expose the logging truck’s green hood. Breathing hard, Henri placed the Bowie knife down on a fender and commenced to open the hood. But the hood wouldn’t rise. “Son-of-a-gun hood release is stuck! Don’t just stand there, Sebastian! Help me lift,” Henri bellowed.

  Sebastian grabbed the rust-corroded hood and helped Henri on the next attempt. At last, after much straining and cursing from both men, the hood lifted with a sharp cracking sound. Rust flakes calved off the hood and showered their heads.

  Sebastian shined his flashlight onto the motor. Birds and rats had performed a number on the engine compartment, using it for nesting places. If the money hid under that greasy, feathery gunk, he sure didn’t know where it could be.

  “Point your light onto the air filter housing,” Henri ordered sharply.

  Sebastian swept the flashlight beam over the top center of the motor, spotlighting the air filter housing. A big smile broke across his crime-hardened face. Claude’s ambiguous poem made complete sense now. The logging truck symbolized the vine-covered tomb, and with a little imagination the air filter housing inside it could easily resemble a rusty wheel.

  He quickly concluded that at least a dozen or two cash bundles could be hidden inside the housing provided the air filter had been removed.

  Henri reached for the wing nut that secured the housing. Almost immediately a great tirade of obscenities fled his mouth. Just like the corroded hood, rust froze the wing nut in place. Henri pounded the frozen wing nut again and again with his ham-bone-sized fists.

  Sebastian cringed. He remembered the Browning underneath his slicker. The weapon seemed grossly inadequate for what he had in mind. It would take at least an elephant gun to stop Henri in his tracks.

  Henri finally stopped pummeling the air filter housing and tried once more to loosen the stubborn wing nut. “See that? I think it moved,” he said.

  Sebastian’s eyes grew large. Either filthy lucre or a filthy air filter awaited him. And with all the positive thinking he could conjure, wished for the former. Just a few more turns and the wing nut would spin off its last thread. He watched with bated breath.

  Henri removed the wing nut and lifted the top cover off the air filter housing. He let out a jubilant yell. Sebastian said nothing.

  He could hardly believe his eyes. The money looked in pristine shape. Two decades of high humidity and heavy rain had done little to sully the one-thousand-dollar bills. Except for a few barely perceptible rust spots on the top bill in each bundle, the cash appeared as clean and crisp as the day it left the presses.

  How am I going to spend it all? Sebastian thought. And where am I going to live?

  Mesmerized by the cash and everything it could purchase, Henri wondered much the same thing. He picked up a bundle and rifled through the bills. The solemn-faced Grover Cleveland seemed to wink at him as he played with the currency.

  Sebastian couldn’t fathom sharing even a penny with Henri. All the money belonged to him. And similar to Cain obeying a sinister prompting to kill Abel, Sebastian prepared to murder his uncle.

  He leaned slightly backward and shifted his weight to his back foot. His hands snaked upward and latched onto the rusted truck hood. Leveraging his body, Sebastian slammed the hood onto Henri’s head with as much downward force as he could generate.

  The sickening thud of corroded metal striking skull told him he’d delivered a knockout blow. Henri’s knees buckled. He staggered drunkenly to his left like a battered pugilist. His hands scratched at air. His arms flailed chaotically. But somehow he never quite lost his balance.

  The strike to the head would have killed the average person, but Henri absorbed the blow and never went down.

  Gathering himself, he turned around and grinned at Sebastian. Blood cascaded from his scalp and streamed down into his mouth, staining his teeth. He laughed demonically. A taunting belly laugh borne not of mirth, but from a depraved mind.

  Still holding the metal flashlight in his hand, Sebastian hauled off and belted Henri in the mouth with the flashlight. The clubbing blow dislodged several teeth, but only caused Henri to take a tiny step backward.

  Realizing he’d stirred the wrath of a man nearly as big as a small grizzly, Sebastian hightailed it back to his Wave Runner. He forgot about the money. He forgot about the gun tucked in its holster underneath his slicker. His brain told him to run as fast as he could away from Henri. But just before reaching the PWC, the rope around his waist jerked him off his feet. He splashed down hard in the floodwater. In all the excitement of finding the ransom money he forgot he’d tethered himself to a tree.

  Bloodied and battered, Henri Boudreaux sloshed over and angrily slammed his three-hundred-pound bulk onto his nephew’s head. The crushing impact nearly shoved Sebastian’s nose into his brain. He couldn’t breathe. Not an altogether bad thing considering three-feet of water blanketed him.

  Henri’s fleshy hands wrapped tightly around his neck. He didn’t know whether his uncle wanted to drown him or strangle him. Whichever the homicidal method, he struggled mightily to extricate himself. But his wild, thrashing movements did nothing to improve his powerless position. The behemoth on top of him may have budged an infinitesimal inch, but no more.

  Like tea bags brewing in water, brown and black nothingness seeped into his vision. His life ebbed, and he could do nothing to stop its exit. If only he could reach his side arm under his rain slicker he would empty it into Henri’s voluminous belly. But he couldn’t get to the Browning. His uncle’s massive girth lodged the gun fast to its holster.

 
; Pinpricks of light flickered in Sebastian’s head. He considered crying out to God for help, but didn’t go through with the petition because he knew God would never spare his life just so he could take Henri’s.

  Unable to help himself, he gave in to the inevitable and ceased struggling.

  But then like the incident at the fishing shack where Henri nearly strangled him before passing out, Sebastian felt Henri’s enormous hands loosen around his neck. And then almost miraculously, he felt his uncle’s weight shift off his stomach.

  It didn’t make sense. Henri didn’t carry an ounce of mercy in his body. It could mean only one thing. He thinks I’ve drowned.

  Sebastian took advantage of his increased freedom and reached inside his slicker. He didn’t bother to pull the Browning from its holster. Instead, he tilted the holstered gun upward, aiming it through his slicker and into Henri’s murky form.

  He pulled the trigger again and again. From underneath the water’s surface, the Browning 10-millimeter roared. Sebastian kept firing until the gun emptied. A moment later, Henri splashed face-first into the water.

  Sebastian bolted up. His face knifed the surface. He gulped air into his lungs as he looked wildly around. He quickly saw Henri floating away on his stomach, blood oozing into the muddy water from multiple bullet holes.

  Sebastian reached out and snared his uncle’s ankles. And fortified by a deadly cocktail mixed with equal parts insanity and adrenaline, dragged the corpse over to the logging truck and hoisted it up onto the flatbed portion of the truck. He then pulled at the kudzu vines, adjusting them so they sprang back into place, hiding both the truck and the deceased. With any kind of luck, the logging truck would go undiscovered for another fifty years, and with it, Henri’s remains.

  Sebastian looked at his trembling hands. He then noticed his whole body shook like an epileptic. Odd, but not too surprising a response considering the harrowing ordeal he just endured.